"There’s obviously something in the air—the last few weeks have seen a flurry
of desalination stories. Here are two more: a trailer-sized, solar-powered
system built by a team at MIT that desalinates around 5,000 litres of water per
day, and one by engineers in Saudi Arabia that relies on cheap materials and
can generate two to three litres of water per square metre."
Desalination system adjusts itself to work with renewable power
<
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/desalination-system-adjusts-itself-to-work-with-renewable-power/>
"Fresh water we can use for drinking or agriculture is only about 3 percent of
the global water supply, and nearly 70 percent of that is trapped in glaciers
and ice caps. So far, that was enough to keep us going, but severe draughts
have left places like Jordan, Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa, Spain, and California
with limited access to potable water.
One possible solution is to tap into the remaining 97 percent of the water we
have on Earth. The problem is that this water is saline, and we need to get the
salt out of it to make it drinkable. Desalination is also an energy-expensive
process. But MIT researchers led by Jonathan Bessette might have found an
answer to that. They built an efficient, self-regulating water desalination
system that runs on solar power alone with no need for batteries or a
connection to the grid."
Solar-powered device harvests litres of drinking water from thin air
<
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/solar-power-water-harvest-kaust-desert-b2589597.html>
"Researchers have invented a solar-powered device capable of extracting several
litres of water from thin air in a single day.
The new self-sustaining technology could provide a lifeline for people living
in arid regions, according to the team that developed it from King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.
The system works in a two-stage cycle that first captures water from the air
with an absorbent material and then extracts it within a sealed chamber using
heat from the sunlight.
Two-stage systems typically require manual labour to switch from one cycle to
another, however the new technology automatically alternates between the two
without need for intervention.
“Our initial inspiration came from observing natural processes: specifically
how plants efficiently transport water from their roots to their leaves through
specialised structures,” said Kaijie Yang, who led the study.
“In our system, mass transport bridges play a crucial role as a connection
between the ‘open part’ for atmospheric water capture and the ‘closed part’ for
freshwater generation.”
The system can generate two to three litres of water per square metre each day,
which can be used to drink or for farming. The researchers demonstrated that it
could be used to irrigate Chinese cabbage and desert trees.
The passive technique allows for continuous operation without intervention,
while running the system for several weeks during tests required no
maintenance."
Via
Fix the News:
https://fixthenews.com/275-resurrection-notre-dame/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
